EXCLUSIVE | Red Fort blast module: Probe freezes bank accounts, looks at Telegram chats, role of ‘foreign handlers’

Investigators say the alleged links between “foreign handlers” and “local operatives” first emerged last month, when they began probing threatening posters bearing the insignia of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which appeared across shopfronts and street corners on October 19.

The following day, three men from Nowgam — Yasir-ul-Ashraf, Arif Nisar and Maqsood Ahmad Dar — were arrested by the police.

Investigators said they reportedly admitted that the posters were their handiwork: Yasir had dictated the text, Arif had created it on his phone using an Urdu-font app, and Maqsood had printed it on a home device.

Police found Arif was allegedly “active” on a Telegram group operated by a Pakistan-based JeM-linked handler, Hanzulla alias Umer bin Khattab. There was another common link between the three – the cleric Wagay.

Officers arrested Wagay from Nadigam, Shopian, on October 27. What emerged during his interrogation transformed the case from a minor propaganda incident into the first layer of a trans-state militant network.

Investigators said Wagay acknowledged that he knew the three men, that he had once handed one of them a pistol and a grenade procured from Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat (an Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind terrorist) of Chanapora, and that he had taken the weapons back later.

Investigators said he was in touch with Hashim and Ishfaq, the “handlers” from across the border who communicated via Telegram.

Wagar, investigators said, also spoke of a chance encounter two years earlier, in a Faridabad hospital. He had gone there for a relative’s medical appointment, and there he had met a Kashmiri doctor, Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganai.

As soon as Ganai’s name came up, the investigation widened. The trail led from Nowgam’s narrow lanes to the rented flats and college hostels of Faridabad, Saharanpur and Nuh, where a group of doctors had allegedly been preparing for a terror attack.

Wagay’s disclosures also led to the arrest of Zameer Ahmad, a Ganderbal resident known locally as Mutlasha, on October 27 – a fortnight before the blast.

Zameer, investigators say, was part of Telegram groups such as “Farzandan-e-Darul Uloom Deoband” and “Kafila-e-Ghurba”. He, too, was allegedly in touch with Hashim and Ishfaq, as well as one Dr Ukasha, all of whom are suspected to be in Afghanistan, Pakistan or PoK. Investigators claim he has admitted to handling money drops, weapon consignments, and terrorist facilitation in coordination with the Wagay.

Based on Zameer’s and Wagay’s questioning, police arrested Dr Ganai from Al-Falah Medical College on October 29. His phone allegedly contained a constellation of Telegram identities — Musaib, Arshad, Jugnoo, Mujtaba — which he used to communicate with others, including Dr Adeel Ahmad Rathar (arrested from Saharanpur) and the Red Fort bomber, Dr Umar Nabi.

According to investigators, he, too, confirmed that the group was in touch with the handlers Hashim, Ishfaq, and Dr Ukasha. He is also learnt to have told investigators that they “raised large funds for the cause through multiple channels”.

On November 5, Dr Rathar was picked up from Saharanpur, but Umar remained elusive. He had vanished from Al-Falah University on the same afternoon Dr Ganai had been detained. A Look-Out Circular was issued, teams were dispatched to Delhi, Faridabad and Saharanpur, but he didn’t surface.

On November 10, CCTV cameras in Old Delhi captured a white Hyundai i20 entering a parking zone near the Red Fort at 3:19 pm. For hours, the car remained there.

At 6:48 pm, the car made its way into heavy traffic, and a blast ripped through the area. The device, forensic teams later concluded, contained ammonium nitrate, potassium compounds, and TATP — a combination capable of producing extraordinary force.